US lauds NDLEA over busts of Mexican meth labs

The United States Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) for Africa and the Middle East, Michael Gonzales, has commended the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) for its operational successes, especially in dismantling meth labs operated by a Mexican syndicate.
Gonzales spoke on Tuesday during a visit to the NDLEA national headquarters in Abuja, where he was received by the Chairman/CEO, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (Rtd), and members of the agency’s management team.
Gonzales, who assumed office four months ago, said he chose Nigeria first because of its status as a leader and economic powerhouse on the continent, and because of the NDLEA’s leadership and the impressive wins the agency has recorded, adding that he wanted to see “firsthand where the magic happens.”
He said narcotics affect American communities more tangibly than almost any other foreign policy issue, and that the drug trade is international, with very few constraints.
The work of INL and the NDLEA, he added, “fundamentally delivers for the Nigerian people, for the American people.”
Gonzales noted that more than 40 years of INL partnership with countries worldwide has taken the form, in Nigeria, of training and equipment donations.
He said intense US pressure on cartels in the Western Hemisphere was like “squeezing a balloon,” pushing trafficking flows toward Africa and onward to Europe and Oceania.
He also pointed to the shift from plant-based drugs to harder-to-detect, deadlier synthetics, and called for sustained action against transnational criminal organisations as a network, including the money flows that facilitate them.
Marwa said the partnership, built through INL’s institutional assistance and the US Drug Enforcement Administration’s cooperation with the NDLEA, is a shared investment in the collective security of both nations.
While linking the convergence of drugs, arms and terrorism, Marwa said drug money buys guns, guns sustain armed groups and armed groups sustain terrorism, and that what festers in the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin does not stay there.
Marwa said INL assistance underpins the agency’s capabilities in forensic and chemical analysis, professional training, investigative and financial-crime skills, and equipment maintenance.